Linda Barlow (18 page)

And yet, hadn't Alan told her that he sometimes thought it would be preferable to die than to go through life crippled by his fears? He was terribly fearful sometimes. After Will's death Alan had had the shakes for at least a week. Many times she had embraced him to comfort him, only to feel him vibrating helplessly against her. "Don't you ever feel as if you're suspended over an abyss, barely holding on with the tips of your fingers?" he had asked her. "Don't you ever glance at your reflection in a scummy pool and see a stranger staring back?"

The memory of Alan's fears magnified her own, and she nearly dropped the candle and fled. But she forced herself to go on, telling herself that if Alan were dead, she must cut him down and attend to his body. She owed him those final devotions. He was her friend, her brother, and she loved him. Tears blinded her. She couldn't imagine a life without Alan.

Dear God. Please make it someone—anyone—else!

She raised the light toward the body. I've seen death before, she reminded herself. Courage.

The first thing she noticed was that the corpse was clothed in a coarse woolen tunic, not in breeches and hose. Surely Alan would not be dressed so. She looked at the hands. Surely these square ringless fingers did not belong to Alan. And the hair—Alan's was short, not so long and tangled. The face—she forced herself to look carefully upon the face. Relief flooded her. Distorted though the features were, there was nothing of Alan in them. She leaned closer. No, it wasn't Alan.

It was Ned.

Alexandra turned away, sinking back to the floor of the cave. Her muscles had no strength, and she was trembling. "There's a shadow round about him," Merwynna had said.

Once again she noticed the musty smell of the cave. The smell of death? No, it couldn’t be. Ned had been alive this morning. At the most, he had only been dead for a few hours. Her stomach churned. Jesu! Poor Ned. She had sent Alan out after him this morning, but obviously he had been unable to protect the lad, and now Alan was missing too. Was Alan also dead? No, surely not. There was no other body in the cave.

For what seemed forever, Alexandra huddled there on the cold stone while various ideas and fancies tumbled around in her head. Slowly her mind cleared. As her thoughts grew less thick and sluggish, she knew herself again for a heedless and credulous fool. Her own words had condemned Ned.

She looked back again at the dead man hanging with his feet swaying in the draft, appearing for all the world like a suicide. But he had not hanged himself, of that she felt sure. Someone else had looped the rope around his neck and twisted it until he died. Someone who feared him for the knowledge he possessed about the night of Will Trevor's death. Someone who had followed him into Westmor Forest this morning, strangled him, and then come back for her. Someone whose lips were sweet and whose body was the only one she ever wanted to take unto her own. Her worst imaginings must be true.

And Alan? What if Alan wasn't missing at all? Roger had told her he had sent men from Whitcombe into the forest to search, but the only ones she had actually seen had been her own people from Westmor. It could have been a ruse to get her alone, to lead her into the forest on this dark and gloomy day, to trick her up to Thorncroft Overhang, where nobody ever went, to arrange an accident for her as he must have arranged one for Will. "Don't underestimate Alexandra," he had said to Francis Lacklin that night in the great hall at Whitcombe. He didn't. He knew she was a danger to him.
I’m not sure how much you actually know versus how much you’ve guessed, but either way, it’s too much.

Unfortunately, nobody had reminded her not to underestimate him. He had outwitted her on every point. He had lured her out despite her illness, separated her from the rest of her party, cozened her into trusting him, and effortlessly unloaded Jacky, her groom. He had even calmed her fears out there on the ledge, confusing her with a kiss. Why hadn't he pushed her then and been done with it?

He had enjoyed the embrace. He was a self-indulgent man. He had probably decided to seduce her first, and then murder her.

"God help me," she whispered, burying her face in her hands. Her old friend Roger was planning to kill her.

Chapter 9

"Alexandra? Where the devil have you disappeared to?"

Courage. Take heart, Alix, take heart. What did Merwynna say was the way to still one's terrors? You must empty the mind. You must ignore the inner turmoil that seeks to drive you deeper into panic. You must stop all thinking, all imagining, and let your spirit float.

Sitting there on the cold floor of the cave listening to his approach, she tried to relax her muscles and float. She repeated the charm against fear that Merwynna had taught her long ago:

Avaunt thou, Fear, Thou Menacer,

Thou Shadow, thou Mirage

I see thee not, I feel thee not,

I rise up firm and proud.

Avaunt thou, Fear...

"Alexandra?" he shouted again from the mouth of the cave. His voice echoed in waves around the cavern, destroying her attempt to quiet her mind. He was no longer calling her Alix.

How can I escape? Damn this cave—why is there no place in here to hide?

He cursed. There was a scrape of metal, then a heavy thud. "Sweet Jesus, there are snakes in here," he muttered. He penetrated more deeply into the cavern, and he must have seen her, since he added, "Are you insane, sitting on the snake-infected ground?"

Roger hated snakes. The only way to frighten him as a boy had been to threaten him with one. Once, in petty revenge for some now-forgotten prank, she had put a small garden snake in his bed. He had shrieked blue murder, and at least a fortnight had passed before he'd even considered forgiving her.

Were there really snakes here?
Snakes around his neck.

He moved toward her, smiling in an eerie manner that further unnerved her. He had sent her into the cave, knowing she must find Ned’s body. When had he turned so cruel? By the feeble light of her candle, she could see that he was holding something. There was a glint of metal as the flame danced in the draft. He had unsheathed his Turkish scimitar.

Alexandra rose numbly to her feet, staring with perverse fascination at the curved metal blade. Would it hurt? They said it didn't. They said you could be stabbed through and never feel anything but an odd weakness that grew stronger as you died.

It was impossible to get past him. The cave was too narrow. It was too late to run and pointless to scream. Neither could she fall at his feet and plead for her life. Never, never would she die like that—disgraced, demeaned. No, there was only one thing to do: she drew her dagger from her belt and adopted the standard defensive posture taught to her long ago by her father's men-at-arms, her knife held flat out, poised and ready.

"It won't be a fair fight, I know. I don't suppose you would consider giving me a sword? I've had several years of instruction. Alan's sword master didn't want to teach a woman, but we insisted. You might find me a more able opponent than you expect."

Roger had stopped a few feet away. He was staring at her with a quizzical expression on his hard-boned face. His voice was light, almost playful as he said, "What kind of game are you suggesting?"

How could he be so nonchalant? Anger swelled in her, driving out her fear. "What about all those sins you already have on your conscience? How can you do this to me?"

He moved much faster than she had expected, closing the distance between them. With the longer blade, he had a huge advantage. His scimitar was at her throat before she could do anything with her dagger. His free hand snaked out and twisted it from her fingers with humiliating ease. "I'm damned if I'll trust you with a knife. Are you cross because I kissed you out there? What do you suppose I intend to do now? Terrorize you into stripping off those ridiculous clothes and opening your legs for me?" He allowed the curved tip of the fearsome sword to slide down until it reached her breasts. He didn't hurt her; the blade barely whispered over her flesh, leaving tingles in its wake. "Dear Christ, but I'm tempted."

Something even stronger than fear pulsed in her. Lust again—that harsh-sounding word—even now it was beating between them. Her face grew hot as she admitted it to herself. There in the darkness, his sexual vitality burned her like a flame. Yet all he need do was lean upon his sword, and she would die.

Desperately, she sought a distraction. "I've found him," she said. "He's very efficiently dead."

Her adversary's eyes lost their focus. "What?"

She nodded toward Ned's body in the shadows. Roger's face changed to an expression of such genuine surprise that it sent confusion roaring through her once again, confusion that was magnified as the scimitar fell disregarded from his hand. Over the clatter as it hit the stone floor, Roger cried out his brother's name.

"It's not Alan," she said as he ran to tear at the rope that held the body. "You know it's not Alan! It's Ned. You know it's Ned."

But he acted as if he did not know. He used her dagger to cut the boy down, then tossed it aside as he dragged Ned closer to the light, stared into his bloated face for a moment, then bent and pressed his head to Ned's chest. Again she felt as if she were going to be sick. She barely managed to hang on to the contents of her roiling stomach. What was he doing? He had strangled Ned. He knew perfectly well he was dead. Why was he playacting?

This is mad, she told herself. She no longer knew what to believe. Her thoughts had stopped making sense. Everything that was logical declared him guilty, everything except his behavior, which was baffling. Still, she had to assume him guilty. He was stronger than she; he had her at his mercy. She dared not trust the instinct that insisted he was no murderer.

Her eyes fixed on his sword, lying on the stone floor near her feet. He had held it against her body. Didn't that prove his deadly intentions toward her? This was, she reminded herself sternly, the same man who had calmly discussed with Lacklin a plot to assassinate the queen.

And now? Was he unarmed? He had thrown away his sword, but he still had a dagger of his own in his sword belt, and maybe other weapons concealed within his doublet. Still, the scimitar was superior to other weapons, and she did know how to use a sword.

She was about to bend down to grab it when Roger turned to her, his face contorted with anger. "I thought it was Alan. I could kill you for frightening me like that."

"Take care! There's a snake behind you," she cried, pointing to the cut length of rope that extended from Ned's neck along the dark floor of the cave. It did indeed look like a serpent in the flickering light, and Roger recoiled. Alexandra swept his scimitar into her hand and lunged at him. He cursed and ducked aside, but she kept her nerve and moved with him, poised to defend herself against any retort that he, a trained man-at-arms, might venture to make. But after a moment of staring incredulously at her, he relaxed and straightened, his eyes holding hers as she determinedly pressed the edge of his sword against the pulse beating in his throat.

"I understand. You found him hanging there. That's enough to unnerve anybody. You'd best get out of here until your head clears. Put that thing down."

It was exactly the tone he had used to Jacky: soothing, reassuring, and authoritative. He was Roger Trevor, heir to a barony and master of a ship full of Mediterranean ruffians. He was accustomed to being obeyed, and he showed not the slightest fear of the deadly blade threatening to spill his lifeblood.

"Murderer," she said.

He held out his hand. His dark eyes compelled her. "Give it to me, lassie. You're distracted."

She was seized with a wild temptation to obey him. Breathing hard, she fought it down. "No. I'll end your miserable existence if you make the slightest hint of an aggressive move."

The soothing tone vanished. "What the bloody hell is the matter with you? 'Tis an ugly sight, a hanging corpse, and to you, I know, a particular loss; but what have I to do with it if some half-wit boy decides to take his own life?"

"Stop pretending. I know it was you. You followed him here and wrung his neck, all because I showed you the dagger that you lost in the ditch on the night you murdered Will."

Roger rolled his eyes. "You're raving. Your mind's unhinged."

"And don't think you can save yourself by murdering me. I'm not a complete lack-wit. I knew it would be perilous to go anywhere with you. I left papers at Westmor stating the evidence against you, so killing me won't silence me."